Collectible items, in particular trading cards for athletes, musicians and other celebrities, continue to provide trading card enthusiasts entertainment and the potential for monetary gain. These cards have been available since the turn of the century and typically display an action photograph or other image, of for example an athlete, on the front face of a card and statistics and other personal information on the back face of a card. Collecting trading cards is a popular hobby engaged in by both children and adults.
In recent years, collecting trading cards has increased in popularity. Card manufacturers have responded to this increase in popularity by introducing innovations such as holographic logos and gold plated collector sets. However, potential sports trading cards have typically been passive, and the information provided thereon has remained relatively constant over the years.
Efforts have been made to improve the level of interaction between a trading card collector and a trading, card. U.S. Pat. No. 5,480,156 to Doederlein et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,433,035 to Bauer disclose talking trading cards which are activatable by either squeezing the card or touching a front surface of the card.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,282,651 to Alonso covers a trading card having a thermochromic coating material which is responsive to temperature change so that a user can change the appearance of the image on the trading card by rubbing the coating with his fingers.
Other efforts at improving the interaction between a collector and his trading cards have included developing board games which employ the trading cards. Such board games are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,407,204 to Meyer, U.S. Pat. No. 5,360,217 to Taylor and a variety of other patents.
A video sports game employing trading cards bearing encoded information has been developed. U.S. Pat. No. 5,411,529 to Pearson et al. discloses a video game system comprising five separate electronic devices that are hard wired together: the first being a card reader, the second a control system, the third a monitor and the fourth and fifth being two control elements that allow a player to interact with the control system and thus play the video game.
Cards bearing coded information are known. One particular application is coded playing cards. U.S. Pat. No. 5,067,713 to Soules et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,534,562 to Cuf et al. are directed to apparati for dealing coded cards. Other known applications are coded gaming tickets, business cards, transaction cards, security cards and identification cards.
Although not related to trading cards, U.S. Pat. No. 5,330,380 to McDarren is directed to an audible message/information delivery system. In particular, the patent discloses a system comprising a speaker, processing means, an activating switch, a microprocessor, and an input zone for reading coded information disposed on a toy selected from the group consisting of toy vehicles, dolls, stuffed animals, airplanes and action figures. When a user places a toy bearing a coded message on the input zone of the system, the system will play back an audible message associated with that toy.
A wide variety of other card readers are known for reading information encoded on metallic or magnetic strips, heat sensitive material and the like disposed on cards. Such readers are generally complex and require components that are not readily portable or require more than one component to perform desired operations. Such readers have been employed as stationary units at automatic bank tellers, entrances and exits to secured areas, retail and storage facilities, store check-out counters and more. Known electro-optical card readers typically require high technology equipment such as lasers and extensive computer controls. However, no card reader systems exist that employ simple electro-optical components assembled into a hand-held, talking card reader.
It is generally known in the art of advertising and promotions to include prize notifications on the inner surface of bottle caps especially on the substantially planar portion of the surface defining the recess in a bottle cap. Such notifications are generally easily read and are not encoded. In order to encourage potential prize winners to patronize specific business establishments, it would be preferable to encode the prize notification in a bottle cap and provide means of decoding the notification at the desired establishments. No such system is known to exist.
Bottles are used to contain a wide variety of materials. Information regarding bottle contents, expiration date of goods, ingredients of bottle contents, safety, use of goods and the like is generally printed on labels which are easily read visually. However, the blind or visually impaired are generally unable to obtain this vital information and must place additional labels having Braille information on the bottles.
The preparation of labels containing Braille information requires special machinery which is generally not purchased by bottled-product manufacturers due to the limited demand for such labels. Additionally, Braille text is not space efficient in that letter character density (number of characters per square inch of label area) is significantly lower than the same for visible text. It would be advantageous to use a product labeling system that could employ widely available printers, provide high character density, provide information to blind, visually impaired and non-visually impaired normal users and could be implemented easily with existing product labeling methods. No such system is known to exist.
Although toys and cards bearing encoded information are known, there is no teaching or suggestion in the prior art of the particular combination of a card and card reader as described and claimed herein. A need remains for interactive card systems useful in a broad range of applications.